Rampant Racism in America

I watched the movie Good Time.

Good Time (film) - Wikipedia

One of the scenes showed what appeared to be two black men robbing a bank. But then the next scene shows the two men pulling off their rather realistic masks and reveals them to be two white men.

During the director's commentary, he stated that this scene was inspired by real events. "Black men" masks had become extremely popular among white bank robbers. So much so that law enforcement had to ask the company that makes these masks to stop making them.
 
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That's a sweet sentiment, but I think the truth about human nature is a lot less sweet.

If you took a 100 kids and had them raised on an island with no adult humans tainting them, there would nevertheless be some who are picked on by others because they are "different" in some way, whether that difference manifests itself by skin color, hair color, height, body weight, eye color, sex, gender, etc.

If anything, kids need to be taught to not pick on/look down on others because of differences.
 
That's a sweet sentiment, but I think the truth about human nature is a lot less sweet.

If you took a 100 kids and had them raised on an island with no adult humans tainting them, there would nevertheless be some who are picked on by others because they are "different" in some way, whether that difference manifests itself by skin color, hair color, height, body weight, eye color, sex, gender, etc.

If anything, kids need to be taught to not pick on/look down on others because of differences.
The caption simply said "No one is born racist." Not a thing there about raising munchkins in some sort of weird island experiment.... :p

I just thought it was a truly beautiful image. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
The caption simply said "No one is born racist." Not a thing there about raising munchkins in some sort of weird island experiment.... :p

I just thought it was a truly beautiful image. Nothing more, nothing less.
Oh, the kids are definitely cute.

The implication of the caption is that we have to be taught to be racist/bigoted. I disagree with that; if there's anything that human history has shown, it's that humans always seize on something to distinguish themselves from and feel superior to "others."
 
Oh, the kids are definitely cute.

The implication of the caption is that we have to be taught to be racist/bigoted. I disagree with that; if there's anything that human history has shown, it's that humans always seize on something to distinguish themselves from and feel superior to "others."
I'd say "often", not "always".... just from personal observations. ;)
 
Experience suggests that the majority of people who are racist are that way because of the influence of other racists (or society and existing norms) on their education/formation.

Of course, it is possible that some people turn racist themselves because of incidents (e.g. a person gets attacked by members of a different group and develops animosity because of that negative experience), but my understanding is that this is not the main reason for racism.

And I think it is very good to work actively to counter that.
 
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I actually disagree with Mischief on this. I believe that most racists are taught from a young age to be racist. There are certainly examples of racists who, for a variety of reasons, undergo a change of heart and cast off their racism. I think that proves they were taught to be racist.

I’ll just leave this here.

 
I've been reading some of the writings of William Jelani Cobb, a black man who is a professor of journalism at Columbia's School of Journalism. Since I am not a black person, I was quite unfamiliar with much of the material he ws writing about.

Cobb believes that a substantial amount (by no means all nor even a majority) of the hatred experienced by black people in American society is due to the misogyny directed against black women by black men. As an example, he cites Nelly's song/music video "Tip Drill." A "tip drill" (a term I had never heard of before) is a woman with a plain or unattractive face but with a beautiful, sexy body--what white people might call a "butter-face" ("but-her-face").

Nelly's video (released around 2000) caused a furor and caused him to be named misogynist of the month, etc. By the way, all the women shown in the video looked quite attractive to me, including their faces.

I am going to try to put the URL within spoiler tags, and some of you may find it quite offensive. It includes a scene of Nelly "swiping" his credit card between a woman's butt-cheeks, whereupon she immediately starts "twerking" or shaking her butt.